Homegrown Tomato Sandwich

Summer is fully in bloom when your homegrown tomatoes are ready to pick. All through June, I haunted my containerized Early Girls, watching for the perfect shade of red that signals the sweetness of full maturity. When it finally arrived, I checked my mayonnaise supply and dashed out to the store for white bread.

I learned to savor tomato sandwiches (never just one) at my Southern grandmother's side. She did little gardening, but always had a few tomato plants. Even a few decades ago, store-bought tomatoes were an odd item not worth eating. Instead, we grew our own or bought them from a 'truck farmer' - men with pickups who drove to Delaware from small Maryland or New Jersey farms and parked a few blocks from the grocery stores, a sort of mini farmer's market. The big Beefsteaks and similar varieties were soft but firm, meaty, juicy and sweet. One slice from the middle could fill a whole piece of bread.

The bread Piffen used was Pepperidge Farm, plain white with more texture than the airy Wonder types but with little flavor to compete with the tomato. She would slather the slices of bread with mayonnaise, add a thick slab of dripping tomato, salt liberally, and savor with no other embellishments. We could each easily polish off two or three in one sitting, washed down with glasses of RC Cola on ice.

Moving from the cool Northwest to a warm, sunny climate restored this ritual to me. Home-growns are available from my own deck, from neighbors' gardens (along with the obligatory giant zucchini), and from the Saturday farmer's market. As summer draws to a close, I hoard the last few garden gems, fixing one or two sandwiches as a special treat. And when my friends and I talk about the days shortening, the temperatures dropping, and other signs of Autum impending, we say to each other, "tomato sandwiches," and sigh.

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